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Pliosaurus brachydeirus is the (combinatio nova of the) type species of the genus. It was first described and named by the English paleontologist Richard Owen in 1841, as a species of the wastebasket taxon Plesiosaurus in its own subgenus Pleiosaurus, creating Plesiosaurus (Pleiosaurus) brachydeirus. [9]
Mosasaurus fossils have been found in North and South America, Europe, Africa, Western Asia, and Antarctica. This distribution encompassed a wide range of oceanic climates including tropical, subtropical, temperate, and subpolar. Mosasaurus was a common large predator in these oceans and was positioned at the top of the food chain.
Plesiosaurus (Greek: πλησίος (plesios), near to + σαῦρος (sauros), lizard) is a genus of extinct, large marine sauropterygian reptile that lived during the Early Jurassic. It is known by nearly complete skeletons from the Lias of England.
It is a stem-based taxon defined as "all taxa more closely related to Pliosaurus brachydeirus than to Marmornectes candrewi". [5] It includes the short necked and large headed taxa that typify the family. [6] [7] The largest representatives reached 10–11 metres (33–36 ft), in length, with around a quarter of this length being the head ...
The smaller mosasaurs may have spent some time in fresh water, hunting for food. The largest mosasaur Mosasaurus hoffmannii was the apex predator of the Late Cretaceous oceans, reaching more than 11 metres (36 ft) in length and weighing up to 10 metric tons (11 short tons) in body mass. [14]
Cast of "Plesiosaurus" macrocephalus found by Mary Anning, Muséum national d'histoire naturelle, Paris. Pliosauroidea is a stem-based taxon that was defined by Welles as "all taxa more closely related to Pliosaurus brachydeirus than to Plesiosaurus dolichodeirus". Pliosauridae and Rhomaleosauridae are stem-based taxa too.
The genus Plesiosaurus is particularly problematic, as the majority of the new species were placed in it so that it became a wastebasket taxon. Gradually, other genera were named. Hawkins had already created new genera, though these are no longer seen as valid. In 1841, Owen named Pliosaurus brachydeirus.
Letter concerning the discovery of the 1823 Plesiosaurus, from Mary Anning. This timeline of plesiosaur research is a chronologically ordered list of important fossil discoveries, controversies of interpretation, taxonomic revisions, and cultural portrayals of plesiosaurs, an order of marine reptiles that flourished during the Mesozoic Era.
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related to: mosasaurus plesiosaurus and pliosaurus god